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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24513994">In England</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes'>Quecksilver_Eyes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Narnia Musings [52]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, in which a wardrobe is built and the world moves on, in which i love digory a lot, post The Magician's Nephew, they're queerplatonic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:34:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>701</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24513994</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In England, this body aches. It’s all creaks and groans and bones, iron clad, throats all drowned in cowardice, curled about a sharp hand.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Digory Kirke/Polly Plummer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Narnia Musings [52]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714795</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In England</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In England, this body aches. It’s all creaks and groans and bones, iron clad, throats all drowned in cowardice, curled about a sharp hand.</p><p>Imagine an old gate, forged by hand and rusting. Its hinges are old; all stuck and fused – it has not been opened in years, see. The ornate parts have long since caved to this England’s heavy rain, there is no key to open it, anymore. Now imagine you try to push it open. Can you feel the strain in your arms? Can you hear the iron bend and stutter, can you hear the hinges tearing? The bottom is scraping over the earth and your hands are all red with it. Do you keep going?</p><p>In England, these hands are salt stained; stiff and slow and with ragged edges, you reach for her. She meets you with laughter and wood splinters in her lap. In the setting autumn sun, her eyes are like molasses, her mouth all curled, her hair a cascade down her back and on her shoulders. With your aches and all your salt, you reach for it and tie it in a bun. She kisses your cheek.</p><p>During the summers; in between hushed voices and rough hands; you build a wardrobe. Your voice drops to a stumble, her body is all laced by the time you’ve finished. Your trousers and her skirt are brown with sawdust, and so she drags you into the lake – fully clothed and gasping for breaths in between all that shrieking laughter. Your shirt is all sheer and heavy with water, her skirt floats all about her. You splutter. She pushes it down into the water, warm as it is from the day’s sun. And then; she jumps on you; all her weight on your shoulders, and all of you under the surface. You pull her down with you, your hands on her waist. In here, her hair sprawls all about her – it’s almost blue if you tilt your head right.</p><p>(Your mother is sure you will marry.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>You put up the wardrobe in the spare room tucked into the narrowest of corridors, and she swears every time she stubs a toe. You giggle, your forehead pressed into the wardrobe door facing you, and she rolls her eyes.</p><p>Building a wardrobe from a tree that has known a world beyond this England is one thing. It’s years of giggles and memories and growing quick enough to lose your breath with it; it’s the echo of lions and Speech and a woman soaked in dishwater.</p><p>Putting up a wardrobe carved from a tree that has known a world beyond this England is quite another. It’s the ache deep in your bones, the shriek lodged in her throat, the weight of rings on your fingers, a witch clinging to you. The sun is dripping onto the wooden floor, and into the wardrobe; wide open.</p><p> </p><p>The wardrobe doesn’t bring you back. Pick up the phone.</p><p>Tell her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>University is a nightmare disguised as curiosity. There are too many lectures, too many papers, not enough hours in a day, and you barely sleep in between. Pick up the phone.</p><p>Tell her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>You prefer the witch to defending your thesis. At least she was all claws and sharp angles, her voice a terrible thing. At least you didn’t have to smile at her. Pick up the phone.</p><p>Tell her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She calls you late at night, her voice all hushed, and you lean against the wall as she talks of her marches, of her colleagues and her world. The sun has long since set, and your bones are all heavy with sleep, but you feel like you do on an autumn afternoon – her head in your lap, your hands in her hair, her voice a slow, deliberate thing in the setting sun. Pick up the phone.</p><p>Listen to her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“She thinks she’s found a magical land in the upstairs wardrobe”, says the little girl, with her hair all curled, and her arms folded. Her brother next to her looks like he wants to be sick. “But that’s impossible.”</p><p>In this England, your body aches. In this England, you do not cry.</p><p>Pick up the phone.</p><p> </p><p>Tell her.</p>
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